1. Researcher Lunch
This “lunch” was opened by the University of Melbourne Pro Vice-Chancellor (International), Prof Simon Evans and by Ambassador Daniel Woker. An additional presentation was given by the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Partnerships) Prof Mark Hargreaves PVC, who emphasized the strong impact and commonalities of Swiss and University of Melbourne research. Prof Elisabetta Barberio from the School of Physics then talked about her experience in the CERN – Uni Melbourne collaboration, followed by an overview presentation of Swiss-Australian collaboration and (mostly SNSF-based) funding opportunities by Christian Schneider.

The Researcher lunch was well-attended with roughly 60 academic guests from a range of fields from the University of Melbourne but also from other universities in Melbourne attending. Feedback was also very positive and the interest in the SNSF short visits and workshops was remarkable.

2. Keynote Presentation
The keynote presentation of the day was given by Prof Gerhard Schmitt. In his presentation, Prof Schmitt introduced the ETH Zurich and its parameters and then focused on the Future Cities Lab in Singapore, where he talked about the Future Cities Lab and its nine modules. Prof Schmitt explained each module by giving current examples of projects the ETH is undertaking. By using the examples, the public was able to get a good impression of current discussions of urban planning, energy usage and transport in Switzerland.

3. Workshops
In the two parallel workshops, “Future Cities” and “Future Health”, expert panels made up of University of Melbourne academics, a Victorian State Government official, Prof Schmitt, the Manager of the brand new IBM Australia research office (a Swiss citizen) and SAAN President Matthias Ernst discussed possibilities of future collaboration in the respective fields.

The Future Cities workshop also gave the local Government Official and Prof Schmitt the opportunity to discuss common approaches to future urban challenges and how they are approached in Switzerland, Singapore, China and Australia. In the Future Health workshop, the presence of IBM Australia, which has recently opened its new research lab in the vicinity of the University of Melbourne, also called the “Parkville Life Science and ICT Precinct” due to its high density of excellent research facilities in these fields, gave the opportunity for the University of Melbourne and SAAN to connect with a potentially new partner with matching interests. Furthermore, Prof Robin Gasser, one of many Swiss tropical disease experts in Australia raised the fact that research on tropical diseases was excellent, but that the commercialization of drugs and therefore collaboration with private industry was less than optimal.

4. Evening Reception
Finally, the University of Melbourne sponsored a very well-attended evening reception, which again featured talks by the Prof-Vice Chancellor (International), Ambassador Woker and Prof Andrew Mitchell, who is currently in charge of a commonly taught Melbourne-Geneva course in international law.

File Attachment: 

Swiss Research Day 2011 Program

Location